The Wall Street Journal on Aug 09 says:
[In
exchange for U.S. concessions to Saudi Arabia, the Biden administration
is seeking assurances from Saudi Arabia that it will distance
itself—economically and militarily—from China, say U.S. officials.
The
officials said the U.S. could seek assurances from Saudi Arabia that it
won’t allow China to build military bases in the kingdom—an issue that
has become a sore point between the Biden administration and United Arab
Emirates. Negotiators could also seek limitations on Saudi Arabia using
technology developed by China’s Huawei and assurances that Riyadh will use U.S. dollars, not Chinese currency, to price oil sales,
they said. The U.S. also is expected to look for ways to end the feud
over oil prices driven by Saudi Arabia’s repeated production cuts.]
Also
yesterday, the WSJ reported in its column 'The Scary Math Behind the
World’s Safest Assets' - about US swelling debt pile and diminishing
global appetite for US Treasury securities - that " Having the world’s
reserve currency and a printing press that allows it to never actually
default makes America’s situation far better, though not
consequence-free. "
Anonymous
6 comments:
The USA is seeking assurances from Saudi Arabia, but will the USA honour its assurances to Saudi Arabia over those concessions, once antagonism rears its ugly head between China and Saudi Arabia over the oil settlement issue and others. What the USA wants is a shift in relations between China and Saudi Arabia for a start, to be capitalised later. Just like setting all the traps with narratives to drag China into criticising Russia over Ukraine. China could see what those attempts are trying to achieve.
The motive behind the move about giving concessions and asking for assurances is to throw a spanner into the co-operation between China and Saudi Arabia, to split the trust between them, making future co-operation difficult and tenuous, while ensuring that the US$ hegemony is not compromised by the sale of Saudi Arabia's oil to China in Yuan, which will create a tsumani on the global stage.
Would Saudi Arabia take the USA bait? Time will tell, and if MBS is astute, he will see the motive behind all this smoke and mirrors. It is all about the USA's own interest and maintaining the US$ hegemony intact. How much is it going to benefit the Saudis is yet to be seen. At the same time, MBS is not unaware of what the benefits and infrastructure developments the country had been able to achieve with the closer ties with China.
The USA will never honour its assurances once they succeeded in enticing Saudi Arabia to distance itself from its improving relations with China. Even with agreements and guarantees thrown in, it is all inconsequential and the Saudi leaders better remember that. You can bet your last dollar on that happening.
Just ask TSMC or Samsung trying to get the chips subsidy promised by dementia stricken Joe Biden. He could be gone in less than two years time, and White House successors are famously known for tearing up agreements and treaties when they took up residence in the White House.
Trump tore up trade agreements, set aside nuclear deals with Iran, and refusing to honour nuclear treaties signed with the Russians. That tells the whole story.
TSMC and Samsung were so 'gung ho' in following the de-risking propaganda and swiping aside China, being blindsided by their greed to build their factories in Arizona, swayed by the subsidies trotted out. But when they attempted to apply for it, after completing construction of those factories, so many conditions were raised and attached to their subsidy applications, practially derailing their effort, comprehensively killing off their initial enthusiasm. Sounds like India to me, LOL.
To be eligible for the subsidies, TSMC will be prohibited from expanding in China for ten years, besides having to provide technical production blueprints, disclose client information and sales data to the USA Government, and above all must share their profits with the USA Government. That may be applied to Samsung as well. Devastatingly, TSMC has not received a single cent of subsidy yet from the USA Government. Suffice to say, TSMC and Samsung might as well build those factories in Arizona and gift them to the USA Government.
Now, TSMC and Samsung are between the devil and the deep blue sea. Withdrawing after investing so much in Arizona is impossible. Applying for those subsidies. but like TSMC, having to provide so much confidential and technical secrets to the USA Government is suicidal. Even more detrimental now is losing their dominant presence and giving Chinese companies, like Luxshare Precision Industry, opportunites to expand their presence and expand their hold in the Chinese market.
Now TSMC and Samsung are talking about investing in Europe and India, wading deeper into the quicksand. They are jumping from the frying pan into the fire, out of sheer desperation. Going back to China is a lost of face, not to mention having to appease the supply chain providers and facing the possible difficulty of recruiting skilled workers, who may have left for other competing employers.
Did the Chips war backfired? Who is suffering and pushing blame on who? Who will be left to pick up the scraps when China moves forward successfully by being self sufficient in domestically produced chips, or at least reaching their target of 75% self sufficiency with domestically produced chips, which means less dependant on traditional chip supply sources? That leaves some thinking for TSMC, Samsung, Intel, Nvidia, Foxconn and others. Who will they be competing against if not for the China market? Themselves of course. The chipmakers fighting against each other in the Chips Alliance. That will be fun to watch. Where is Nancy Pelosi?
Suffice to say, TSMC and Samsung might as well build those factories in Arizona and gift them to the USA Government.
Some countries are already doing that, gifting companies they set up in India with billion dollars to investment to the Indians and pretending that they are still owning these investments.
Stupidity has no cure. And stupidly still throwing good money against bad money into India.
A website, Times Now, is boasting about the push of the 'Made in India' agenda as a checkmate against China's tecnological advance. I just wonder whether this is just a theory on paper or a reality situation.
The site claims that India is producing so many scientist, engineers and skilled workers to help India industrialisation that it will certainly overtake China soon. Wonder if they asked Apple, Wistron or Foxconn about their difficulties in recruiting skilled workers in their Indian factories before boasting about it.
If there are indeed so many enginners and scientist in India, why can't India build or upgrade its rail system, and need Japan to build its high speed rails, progressing like a snail. Why is there a shortage of skilled workers to fill the vacant positions in factories set up by foreigners, that in the end they lost hope and have to exit from India?
From the way the site tried to glorified India, as if it has already overtaken China and is now the 'factory of world' just boggles the mind. The fact is, there is yet to be seen of Indian products dominating the consumer market in any category. except their persistent farting of hot air.
The site further picks on and gloats about the ban placed on laptops by India against China as highly detrimental to China. China's laptop exports to India only accounts for 3% of its laptop exports worldwide. It is a claim that this is going to boost India's laptop production, forgeting to mention that India still has to depend on China for most of the laptop parts needed to assemble the gadget. What this means is that China is still totally insulated despite the 3% ban, as it still is supplying laptop computer parts to India. For India, it is just like importing the parts to make up the laptop in seperate pieces for assembly, instead of importing a fully assembled laptop. How convincing is their attempt to whitewash the reality?
Do the maths! Two thirds of laptops sold in India came from China (accounting for 3% of China's laptop exports). The other one third are merely laptops assembled in India with parts sourced primarily from China. So, who is going to hurt who?
As they say, India is just using a pea shooter to shoot an elephant.
It is Make in India, not Made in India. See the difference? Make means not yet made, just an aspiration.
By banning Chinese laptops, India would buy laptops Made in USA and Made in Europe. India is a very rich country. They can afford expensive European and American laptops.
Apple is top mobile phones in India. India would not buy Chinese mobile phones. Soon they will ban Chinese Made mobile phones and only use Apple iPhones.
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